The following is a list of recommended readings on cultural rights, organized by books, articles and web resources.
Books:
Seyla Benhabib, The Claims of Culture: Equality and Diversity in the Global
Era. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002
In this book,
Yale University professor Seyla Benhabib provides a systematic look at various
theories of culture, identity, inclusion, and pluralism and the role that these
play relative to democratic theory, rights, redistribution, and citizenship. The
author argues that much debate on this topic is handicapped by a flawed
conception of cultures as unified and autonomous entities. In an effort to
reconcile liberal-democratic theory with cultural politics, Benhabib develops
her own deliberative democratic model, which allows maximum cultural
contestation within the parameters of civil society.
Will Kymlicka, ed., The Rights of Minority Cultures. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1995
This collection of essays by some of the most
prominent political and legal theorists in the area of minority rights is an
important text for understanding the current debates on cultural rights,
especially as they relate to ethnocultural conflict and democratic theory. The
essays present a wide range of opinion on issues such as: models of cultural
pluralism, political representation of minorities, individual versus collective
rights, immigration and citizenship.
Alison Dundes Renteln, The Cultural Defense. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2004
This is an excellent resource for those interested in the challenges
traditional cultural practices pose to contemporary law. Drawing upon a plethora
of case material (mostly from the United States), Renteln argues that there are
patterns to the cultural arguments made in courtrooms that provide a starting
framework for a systematic use of culture in legal proceeding. In doing so,
Renteln considers the limits of cultural rights and develops policy guidelines
for their inclusion in legal decision-making.
Richard A. Shweder, Martha Minow, and Hazel Rose Markus, eds., Engaging Cultural Differences: The Multicultural Challenge in
Liberal Democracies.
New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2002
This collection of essays
produced out of a series of meetings sponsored by the Social Science Research
Council examines the challenges of pluralism in liberal democracies and
considers various solutions. Individual chapters address the ways that cultural
differences impact individuals, workplaces, and legal systems. Striking at some
of the most important cultural rights issues, the authors ask how the law should
regulate cultural practices and what the limits should be to cultural
accommodation.
Halina Niec, ed., Cultural Rights and Wrongs, UNESCO, Institute of Art and Law,
1998
This book reflects a wide range of opinion on the state of cultural
rights in the late 1990s. The eleven essays, written by representatives from the
five continents, highlight some of the most important topics in recent cultural
rights debates: the rights of indigenous people, the protection of the
intangible heritage, the role of UNESCO, and the creation of international
mechanisms for the implementation of cultural rights. The issues addressed in
this book have informed UNESCO's recent work in the areas of cultural diversity
and the protection of the intangible heritage.
2004 Human Development Report: Cultural Liberty in Today's Diverse
World. United Nations Development Program,
2004
This issue of the annual United Nations Development Program
report seeks to confront the deficits of majoritarian democracy and the
challenge of building inclusive, culturally diverse societies. The goal of the
report is an all-encompassing evaluation of "cultural liberty" in the world
today, including a look at the consequences of cultural diversity, legislative
and other mechanisms for achieving this goal, and the role of globalization in
the destruction, preservation, and change of cultures.
Richard Wilson, Jane Cowan, and Marie Benedicte Dembour, eds., Culture and Rights: Anthropological Perspectives.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001
This is a first-rate
collection of essays that challenges the binary of human rights universalism and
cultural relativism, arguing instead that local and global norms are interactive
and interdependent. Approaching their topic from the field of anthropology, the
authors use case studies to test theoretical approaches. The essays in part I
expose the inadequacies of traditional "essentialist" anthropological approaches
to culture on the one hand, and of international human rights law on the other,
to accommodate the complexities revealed by real-life situations in which the
rights of minorities are involved. The essays in the second part of the book
discuss the advantages, problems, and unintended consequences of using culture
as a basis for rights struggles.
Ronald Niezen. The Origins of Indigenism: Human Rights and the Politics of
Identity. University of California Press, 2003
This book offers
an excellent history of the global indigenous rights movement and analyzes the
ways indigenous rights advocates have made use of the international human rights
system to advance their claims.
Articles
Bruce Robbins and Elsa Stamatopoulou, "Reflections on Culture and Cultural Rights," [PDF, 17
pages] South Atlantic Quarterly, 103: 2/3 (2004)
This essay, a
critique of Culture and Rights (see above), is valuable for those
concerned with the political dilemmas surrounding the recognition of cultural
rights. The authors observe that as scholars become increasingly convinced that
culture is an unbounded and fluid concept, more people are firmly identifying
themselves with their heritage and, as such, are making demands to protect it.
These claims based on cultural rights inevitably pose political difficulties to
nation-states. The authors explore the relative merits of two strategies:
seeking self-determination and seeking cultural rights within a multiethnic
state. They identify challenges presented by recognizing cultural rights, but
suggest that the benefits of this strategy far outweigh the inconvenience of
these challenges.
Janusz Symonides, "Cultural rights: A neglected category of human rights."
International Social Science Journal (1998)
In this article,
Warsaw University professor Janusz Symonides systematically describes the
cultural rights protections provided by international law. He aims to show that,
despite being regularly ignored by human rights scholars and practitioners,
cultural rights are well-articulated and the tools necessary to protect them are
in place. In the second part of the essay Symonides discusses the various
challenges to cultural rights (globalization, emerging technologies, claims
about relativism, etc.), and presents a plan to better assure their protection.
Robert Albro, "Making Cultural Policy and Confounding Cultural Diversity."
Cultural Commons, October 2005
In this timely and critical
analysis of the draft UNESCO Cultural Diversity Convention, Robert Albro
argues that the document's vague definition of "diversity," particularly the
failure of the drafters to attach the diversity concept to specific cultural
subjects, is the proposed convention's most problematic aspect.
Web Resources
"Why Cultural Rights Now?" Lecture by Elsa Stamatopoulou at
Carnegie Council, Sept 2004
In her 2004 lecture at the Carnegie Council,
Elsa Stamatopoulou, Chief of the Secretariat of the Permanent Forum on
Indigenous Issues at the UN, provides a critical overview of cultural rights in
theory and practice. She explains the historical meanings given to the term
"cultural rights," why these rights have been neglected, and why they are of
particular importance today. Richard Wilson, Andrew Nathan, Tanni Mukhopadhyay,
Shalini Venturelli, John Scott, and Tara Melish, respond.
